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Tuesday, 31 January 2012

one current obsession. (appropriate to pathologise ardent pre-occupations with 'obsessive'? flip side: aged 32, grow up and find that measured middle ground? flip flip side: stop constructing deliberate binaries you cheap cunt, the stock-in-trade of the water cooler pseud. this all in inverted commas, right?)

anyway.

opening 40 seconds or so of this track from the American band Tennis (in particular, though the song in general hits me in the mush), from their 2011 album Cape Dory; this is the title track.

pregnant possibility, wonderful guitar lines of Patrick Riley augmenting Alaina Moore's language of promise and intent, anchoring everything as she forms worlds, then along comes James Barone, fuller this time, to his kit, love it love it love it.

Monday, 30 January 2012

King Philip's War, sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, or Metacom's Rebellion, was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Native American allies in 1675–76. The war is named after the main leader of the Native American side, Metacomet, known to the English as "King Philip"

[...]

According to a combined estimate of loss of life in Schultz and Tougias' King Philip's War, The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict (based on sources from the Department of Defense, the Bureau of Census, and the work of colonial historian Francis Jennings), 600 out of the about 80,000 English colonists (1.5%) and 3,000 out of 10,000 Native Americans (30%) lost their lives due to the war.

Sunday, 29 January 2012

There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it;

Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.

Saturday, 28 January 2012

The settler's town is a strongly-built town, all made of stone and steel. It is a brightly-lit town; the streets are covered with asphalt, and the garbage-cans swallow all the leavings, unseen, unknown and hardly thought about.
The settler's feet are never visible, except perhaps in the sea; but there you've never close enough to see them. His feet are protected by strong shoes although the streets of his town are clean and even, with no holes or stones.
The settler's town is a well-fed town, an easy-going town; its belly is always full of good things. The settler's town is a town of white people, of foreigners.

The town belonging to the colonized people, or at least the native town, the Negro village, the medina, the reservation, is a place of ill fame, peopled by men of evil repute. They are born there, it matters little where or how; they die there, it matters not where, nor how. It is a world without spaciousness; men live there on top of each other, and their huts are built one on top of the other.
The native town is a hungry town, starved of bread, of meat, of shoes, of coal, of light. The native town is a crouching village, a town on its knees, a town wallowing in the mire. It is a town of n*****s and dirty arabs.

Friday, 20 January 2012

FROM THE MOMENT I HEARD about Bidder #70 raising his paddle inside a BLM auction to outbid oil and gas companies in the leasing of Utah’s public lands, I recognized Tim DeChristopher as a brave, creative citizen-activist. That was on December 19, 2008, in Salt Lake City. Since that moment, Tim has become a thoughtful, dynamic leader of his generation in the climate change movement. While many of us talk about the importance of democracy, Tim has put his body on the line and is now paying the consequences.

The villagization program is taking place in areas where significant land investment is planned or occurring. The Ethiopian government has consistently denied that the resettlement of people in Gambella is connected to the leasing of large areas of land for commercial agriculture, but villagers have been told by government officials that this is an underlying reason for their displacement. Former local government officials confirmed these allegations to Human Rights Watch.

One farmer told Human Rights Watch that during the government’s initial meeting with his village, government officials told them: “We will invite investors who will grow cash crops. You do not use the land well. It is lying idle.”

[...]

From 2008 through January 2011, Ethiopia leased out at least 3.6 million hectares of land, an area the size of the Netherlands. An additional 2.1 million hectares of land is available through the federal government’s land bank for agricultural investment. In Gambella, 42 percent of the total land area is either being marketed for lease to investors or has already been awarded to investors, according to government figures. Many of the areas that have been moved for villagization are within areas slated for commercial agricultural investment.

“The government is killing our people through starvation and hunger. It is better to attack us in one place than just waiting here together to die. If you attack us, some of us could run, and some could survive. But this, we are dying here with our children. Government workers get this salary, but we are just waiting here for death.”–Elder in recently relocated village, Abobo woreda, May 2011

“There is a psychological impact on children. No learning is happening. There was a school in the old village, here there is none. No one is going to school now, as they are afraid. Who will protect them going to the old village? Even the children themselves are refusing to go.”–Anuak woman from new village discussing the lack of promised school in Abobo woreda, May 2011

however, none of this changes the central fact of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and who is to blame for the genocide; granted, you do get fruitloops attempting to totally invert what happened there, usually for their own agenda, which has nothing to do with the people of Rwanda.

Sunday, 8 January 2012

Saturday, 7 January 2012

A further 800,000 homes will be put out of reach of people on housing benefit because of government welfare cuts – leaving low income families the choice of cutting spending on food to pay the rent or moving out, according to a study by housing experts.

[...]

It is unlikely that the poor will be able migrate to cheaper parts of the capital: in Newham, east London, there will be twice as many claimants as there are low-cost homes. In Croydon, 17,000 people will be chasing 10,000 properties.

The effect will be felt not just in south-east England. Before today, Birmingham had more than 37,000 homes with rents affordable on welfare. Now 34,500 housing benefit claimants will be chasing 23,000 low-cost houses, according to the analysis, carried out for the Guardian. On the Mersey, 21,000 people collecting local housing allowance will only be able to afford 12,000 homes in Liverpool.

Because welfare is set at Westminster, the cuts will also be felt in Scotland. In Glasgow there will be a thousand more benefit recipients than there are properties which can be rented with the government's reduced housing subsidy.

Thursday, 5 January 2012

Monday, 2 January 2012

Sunday, 1 January 2012

The Elizabethan legislation was intended to help the 'settled' poor who found themselves out of work (for example) because of illness, or during a hard winter or a trade depression. It was assumed that these people would accept whatever work or relief the parish offered, whether that was indoor or outdoor relief. Neither method of assistance was seen as punitive or harsh. It was intended to deter or deal with the 'sturdy beggars' who were roaming the roads, robbing travellers and generally posing a threat to civil order. The increase in the numbers of beggars was probably the historical background to the nursery rhyme

Hark! Hark! The dogs do bark!The beggars are coming to town:Some in rags, some in tagsAnd one in a velvet gown